In contrast to the fiscally conservative Padres, the Detroit Tigers are what it looks like when you spend an inordinate amount of money on players and stumble badly out of the gate. The effect's the same.

Based on the fuss made over the Tigers and their busy, free-spending offseason, they're supposed to be about 20 games ahead of everybody in the AL Central by now. Instead, they're roughly in the same place in an underachieving division as the Padres, albeit much closer to .500.

Around the time the Padres started playing well, so did the Tigers, victors in 10 of their past 12. Of all the high-priced talent in their lineup -- Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordon~ez, Ivan Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield -- the scariest guy in the lineup now is Marcus Thames.

His past eight hits have been homers, of which he's got a total of 13.

Their starter tonight is Eddie Bonine, a Triple-A terror who was summoned to replace Dontrelle Willis. Unlike the latter, Bonine's a strike-thrower, and he won his debut last Saturday despite giving up six runs. Speaking of control pitchers, Greg Maddux hasn't given up a walk in six of his starts, but the last outing was a weird one in that Maddux hurt himself with a rare wild pitch, a more rare hit batter and most-rare error. Winless since May 10, Maddux can become a 20-game winner in interleague play with a defeat of Detroit.